User:BD2412/Neoplorgismanteau
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A neoplorgismanteau is a word that is both a neologism and a portmanteau; the word "neoplorgismanteau" is itself a neologism, and is a portmanteau of the words "neologism" and "portmanteau".
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[edit] History
The term, neoplorgismanteau, was developed through a process of trial and error by BD2412, who was struck by the possibility of such a word while brushing his teeth on the evening of 21 February 2006. BD tried and discarded a number of alternatives, including "neolomanteau", "portmaneologism", "neolortmanteau", "portmaneologisteau", "neoportmanteaugism", and "neoportmanlogism", each of which BD simply found to be less satisfactory, likely because none contains the syllabic construction "plorg" (see inherently funny word).
[edit] Importance to society
Importantly, the term is also an anagram for "Salut! O' grim, neon ape!", a classic phrase that lacks meaning. It is also a palindrome... um, no, wait, it's not.
Neoplorgismanteaux, like all neologisms, are frowned upon in Wikipedia, as they are often the fairly obvious product of original research and can not be sourced or verified. This is borne out by a Google search of the term conducted just after its creation, which yielded the following results:
- Your search - neoplorgismanteau - did not match any documents.
However, a search conducted on 15 April 2006 returns three results, or eleven if similar hits are included.
The same search, conducted 18 August 2007, returns eight results, or seventy five if similar hits are included.
Because of these deficiencies, such words are frequently deleted from Wikipedia – critics of these deletions (most of whom maintain anonymity out of fear of reprisal) frequently make spirited arguments that this prevents the words from gaining the same currency afforded to recent quick-spreading neoplorgismanteaux such as "jazzercise", "craptastic", or "bootylicious". This, in turn, raised fears among the dozens and dozens of neoplorgismanteau supporters that the neoplorgismanteau article would be deleted shortly after its creation (and long before people would have the opportunity to hear "neoplorgismanteau" used daily in common street parlance). These supporters contended that the article should at least be userfied.
Indeed, the Neoplorgismanteau article was swiftly tagged for deletion by a newbie, and was in fact deleted. However, it was later thoughtfully restored and userfied upon request to Aecis.
[edit] Variations on the theme
Naturally, the process of creating neoplorgismanteaux is referred to as neoplorgismanteaufication. Occasionally a word will be mistaken for a neoplorgismanteau, particularly if the word appears to be a recent creation, even though it was once in use and has simply fallen out of style for a long period. Such a word is of course called a pseudoneoplorgismanteau; and one who attempts to re-introduce a pseudoneoplorgismanteau is guilty of pseudoneoplorgismanteaufication. A fine example of this is pandeism, for which the contributor was initially thought by his peers to be a neoplorgismanteauficator, when in fact the word has been in use (though intermittently, inconsistently and obscurely) for 180 years, thus putting it squarely in the category of pseudoneoplorgismanteaux.
Researchers continue to puzzle over the fact that pseudoneoplorgismanteaufication is an anagram for the cryptic declaration: "A good fiction is to prune man, please." Of particular disconcertation is the phrase "prune man" - does it refer to pruning man like the pruning of trees, or to the shriveled remnants of a plum?
Incidentally, neoplorgismanteau is an anagram for the phrase "A meagre lion puts up." The question is – what does this remarkable feline put up? The aforementioned plum, perhaps?
[edit] Notes
- ^ Editor's note: The author of this page initially incorrectly referred to the term as an acronym, where he meant to say anagram - thank you to the editor who corrected this. It raises an interesting point - if a neoplorgismanteau were in fact an acronym, could we call it a neoplorgismanteaucronym? Would that be the case if someone were to develop a backronym for "neoplorgismanteau" itself, i.e. a baneoplorgismanteauckronym?
- ^ Editor's second note: neoplorgismanteauaetnamsigrolpoen is, in fact, a palindrome; baneoplorgismanteauckronymynorkcuaetnamsigrolpoenab is utter gibberish.
